Coloring with pleasure Josepha saw the
Baroness into the hackney coach with the humblest politeness.
"It must be some visiting Lady of Charity," said the man-servant to
the maid, "for she does not do so much for any one, not even for her
dear friend Madame Jenny Cadine."
"Wait a few days," said she, "and you will see him, madame, or I
renounce the God of my fathers--and that from a Jewess, you know, is a
promise of success."
At the very time when Madame Hulot was calling on Josepha, Victorin,
in his study, was receiving an old woman of about seventy-five, who,
to gain admission to the lawyer, had used the terrible name of the
head of the detective force. The man in waiting announced:
"Madame de Saint-Esteve."
"I have assumed one of my business names," said she, taking a seat.
Victorin felt a sort of internal chill at the sight of this dreadful
old woman. Though handsomely dressed, she was terrible to look upon,
for her flat, colorless, strongly-marked face, furrowed with wrinkles,
expressed a sort of cold malignity. Marat, as a woman of that age,
might have been like this creature, a living embodiment of the Reign
of Terror.
This sinister old woman's small, pale eyes twinkled with a tiger's
bloodthirsty greed.
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